Premier League transfer deadline madness

by Steve

I’ve been F5-ing my day away on The Guardian minute-by-minute report of the Premier League football transfer deadline day. There may be some exciting stories to emerge by the end of the evening, which isn’t often the case with these last-day shenanigans as managers and journalists alike scramble around trying to make something of the day, as the hours evaporate, generally with little success. But today Manchester City have been in the thick of some potentially huge stories, looking to gazump Chelsea to Robinho and steal Dimitar Berbatov from under neighbours Manchester United’s noses. The sheer audacity of it, plus the huge fees that are likely to be involved makes this a newsworthy deadline day amid the panic buying and other underwhelming transfer news.

I am not a big fan of the transfer deadline/windows in their current form. They seem to encourage these bursts of transfer activity that are often all hype and little action and seem to create a false market where clubs desperately throw money around on deals that may not be that wonderful. And the inflationary aspect of the window clearly benefits the bigger clubs, widening the gap there already is between rich and poor clubs.

While in the modern media age I’m pleased we don’t have the dull Gareth Barry and Cristiano Ronaldo sagas we had to endure this Summer all year long, I could live without the false parameters for sealing transfers. But, if we are to have transfer windows I wish they didn’t infringe on the season itself. This season so far already feels like a “phoney war”, yet to fully ignite. Transfers still going on, only to be cut off a few weeks into the season, just makes this worse. We should at least see the squads settled before the season starts if there is a time-limit on when transfers can take place.

Still, at least this window might not be an absolute dissapointment in the end, and at least the endless speculation will be over too, and we can get on with the important stuff. And for all my complaining, I’m still F5-ing…

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4 Comments to “Premier League transfer deadline madness”

The UEFA should stop this madness that is currently taking place in the Premier League. It has has grown way out of proportion. I can’t image that anyone would want to see 4 english teams in the CL – semis on a consecutive basis. And on what reasonable basis can you justify a 160 million bid for Ronaldo? ManU should demand 5 billion euros to make such people think. But I guess they would be delighted to pay that as well.

As much as it is entertaining to see all the big names in the CL it does seem to demean the whole idea of it being the Champions League.

The inflation is crazy, and the events at Man City this week are mindboggling. I wouldn’t mind if these transfers were sound investments, but generally they are not, and in the worst case scenario the club ends up in real trouble if the gamble doesn’t come off (see Leeds).

It certainly looks to be incredibly open this season – for winning the league, and CL qualification. I still have a sneaky feeling that the old ‘big four’ might end on top again, but perhaps that’s the optimistic Liverpool fan in me. Even so, its refreshing to see some genuine competition in the Premiership, and for the vast majority of games to be competitive. As for the transfer window, I see a few more Viera-like loan deals, but nothing too shocking. Apart from Man City, is there really that much money out there to spend?